Anne Charts a Journey to a New Territory
by Esther-Channah
Summary: Anne is horrified to discover that Marilla has consented to host Gilbert Blythe for a meal when his parents travel to Upper Canada. Then she realizes that the prospect may not be as terrible as it seems.


A/N: This story is set in 1879, when Anne is fourteen. At this time, the province of Alberta did not exist. Most of its territory, including the city of Edmonton, existed as part of the Northwest Territories. The Anne of Green Gables Wiki mentions that in 1873 John Blythe became ill and he and Gilbert went to Alberta, returning after three years. Nearly all of population of the area that would later become that province was Indigenous at that time and it's possible that Mr. Blythe made the journey hoping for a cure that was not known to Western medicine. Sandwich, Upper Canada is the present-day city of Windsor, Ontario.  
Thanks to Kathy, Debbie, and Anne O' The Island for the beta.

Written for Jiokra as part of the Exchange at Fic Corner (2018).

 **Anne Charts a Journey to a New Territory**

It wasn't quite half-past four yet, but the clouds were already glowing pink in the November sky as Anne, her cheeks shining with a complementary glow of their own, tramped smiling up the lane to Green Gables. Her smart blue tam o' shanter contrasted sharply with her gleaming red braids, upon which numerous snowflakes had found their resting place. Diana had recently shown Anne a fashion magazine that Aunt Josephine had brought with her from a recent holiday in England and Anne had been entranced by the portraits of ladies in elegant dresses with hair that wasn't merely pinned in rolls and plaits, but further decorated with the most exquisite of beads, flowers, ribbons, and lace. Before she and Diana had parted ways by the now-frozen shores of the Lake of Shining Waters, Diana had compared the snowflakes adorning her bosom friend's tresses to the one of the beaded "dos" in said magazine and Anne still felt as though she was floating above the snow instead of stamping through it.

Marilla was waiting for her at the front door. "Don't bother coming inside," she said crisply. "Just set your books down on the floor in the hall. You might have noticed that the walk's not shoveled," she continued. "The doctor's worried about Matthew's heart and thinks the work might be too much for him and Jerry's gone now the season's over and the harvest's done. I hate to ask it, Anne, but I need you to clear a path."

"Of course, Marilla," Anne said, obediently setting down her book-strap with the proper reverence for the text books it held close. "When I saw the snow lying so crisp and pristine along the way, I thought it was such a shame to have to trample it with muddy boots and I knew that when I got home, there would be such a neat and smooth path from the road to the door, all packed down so I'd barely leave any prints. And then when I didn't see one, at first I thought that perhaps Matthew had enough of a sense of beauty and romance that he didn't want to spoil the look, but of course, I knew that you'd never stand for it and that the reason he hadn't shoveled the path was because something must have happened to prevent his doing so. And I see I was right!" A pleased smile sprang to her face, but fell away almost immediately.

"I'm so sorry, Marilla," Anne exclaimed, contrite. "Matthew _is_ well, isn't he? I know that the doctor wouldn't have told him not to clear away the snow if he weren't worried that something _might_ happen, but that isn't the same as though something actually _had_ happened, is it? He is well?"

"If you'd allowed me to get a word in edgewise," Marilla retorted, "you'd have an answer already. Yes, Matthew is fine for now. He's in the parlor with the _Charlottetown Herald_ he picked up last week when he went to town and hasn't had time to look at until today. I'll let him know when you're done with the shoveling and he'll likely want to join you in the kitchen for a cup of mulled cider and some molasses cookies. I took a batch out of the oven not half an hour ago," she added a bit gruffly, thinking that she'd been doing a lot more baking in the three years since Anne had come to Green Gables than she had formerly. Rachel would have told her she was going _mellow_ and, rather than have _that_ sort of talk make the rounds, she preferred to affect a sternness that she felt less and less.

"Cider and molasses cookies," Anne breathed, practically in the throes of a new ecstasy. "Oh, Marilla, I'll shovel that path and be back as quick as I can!" She took off toward the barn, stumbling a bit through the deep snow.

"Mind you do a thorough job!" Marilla called after the retreating figure. Then she rolled her eyes skyward for a moment, heaved a sigh that wasn't anywhere near as exasperated as it sounded, and went back into the warm farmhouse, shutting the door behind her.

* * *

Anne meant to get the shovel quickly and begin the task that Marilla had set for her, but the barn was warm and inviting on that winter afternoon. The sorrel mare stretched her head toward the young girl in greeting and, after that, nothing would do but that Anne stroke the horse's soft nose and scratch her withers at the spot where they met the neck.

When the young girl recollected her errand and hastened for the shovel, the mare whinnied softly and Anne simply had to feed her a carrot to compensate her for so short a visit on so cold a day. And so occupied in the barn, Anne missed the arrival of Mrs. Harmon Andrews to Green Gables, and though she might have spied fresh tracks in the snow, Mrs. Andrews had rather thought she'd have an easier time negotiating the path if she did her best to set her boots in the very tracks that Anne had made earlier, rather than break a new trail of her own.

So, while it subsequently seemed to Anne as though those tracks were somewhat messier than they had been, she didn't deem the difference significant. She was too busy trying to shovel then away before the last of the daylight faded.

It was exhausting work.

And when a bundled-up figure emerged from the house and made its way down the now-half-shoveled path, pausing only to greet Anne as she passed, Anne was too weary to do more than return the greeting. By the time she realised that the woman who had passed her was Mrs. Harmon Andrews, that good woman was already climbing into the buggy Anne had somehow missed seeing, so intent had she been on the way the pinks and oranges of a Prince Edward Island sunset made the white snow sparkle as though bejeweled.

"I wonder what she came for," the girl murmured to herself. "Oh, but I can't ask Marilla, now. She'll only ask me whether I've finished shoveling and if I haven't she won't tell me a thing until the job's done." She sighed. Then her face brightened. "I suppose that's as good a reason as any to work quicker, then," she added, attacking the chore with new vigor.

* * *

There was a tension in the atmosphere when Anne finally came inside. She wondered briefly whether she was in some sort of trouble. She hadn't run into any difficulties at school; her grades were strong and it was so much easier to be good in Miss Stacy's class than it had been in Mr. Phillips'. And Gilbert Blythe had been away for the past week, so she hadn't been provoked into saying or doing anything that might make Marilla ashamed of her.

"I suppose I must have been daydreaming and forgotten some chore again," she murmured, "though I can't think what. Oh, it's so unbearable knowing that you're due a scolding and not knowing why. I really think not knowing might be a far worse punishment than anything Marilla might contrive. Oh, well," she sighed, "the sooner I go into the kitchen, the sooner my suspense will be over."

And with that realisation, Anne plopped herself down on the bench in the front hall, grasped her right boot firmly in both hands, and tugged. It came off after some struggle with a neat little pop that sent her rocking back against the wall. That operation complete, she turned her attention to the left.

* * *

"It's already nigh suppertime," Marilla said crisply when Anne presented herself in the kitchen. "I guess you may as well have the cookies and cider for dessert, so's not to spoil the meal."

"Yes, Marilla," Anne said, noting that Marilla didn't seem the least bit cross with her, even though there was yet that tension in the air. Curious. "Marilla," she ventured, "Is everything quite all right? Why did Mrs. Harmon Andrews stop by? Is Jane well?"

Marilla sighed. "Jane's fine," she said after a moment's pause. "Mrs. Andrews came to see me about… Well, about Gilbert Blythe."

Anne stiffened at the mention of that name.

"His father," Marilla amended. "You may have heard he's not been well. There's talk of some doctor in Upper Canada who might be able to help, and John Blythe will be headed to Borden tomorrow to catch the ferry to the mainland and take the train westwards."

"Upper Canada?" Anne repeated, startled. "But that's so far away!"

"It is," Marilla agreed. "And that's why Mrs. Andrews came. With his father away, Gilbert will be on his own up at the farm and she feels that the community ought to pitch in at this difficult time. Something I agree with," she added.

"Of course," Anne murmured. She might not have any kindly feelings toward Gilbert Blythe, but she could certainly spare some for an ailing farmer who was about to embark on a long journey with no certainty of its outcome.

"So," Marilla continued, "in John Blythe's absence, the households of Avonlea will be taking turns hosting Gilbert for meals. Mrs. Andrews came around to find out when we'd take our turn and I had her write us down for dinner a week Tuesday."

Anne's eyes opened very wide. "Gilbert's coming here?" she whispered. "Oh, Marilla. How—?" _How can you_ , was what she'd been about to say, but she stopped herself, realizing that Marilla clearly felt her Christian duty to be charitable overrode her sensitivity toward Anne's tender feelings. "How will I bear it?" she said instead.

"You'll bear it," Marilla said with grim good humor. "Heaven knows you've borne worse than a dinner with a schoolmate you dislike. Just imagine yourself not disliking him for one evening."

Anne didn't smile back.

"He'll walk back with you from school that day, so mind you don't get too far ahead of Diana lest the gossips start their tongues wagging at the sight of the two of you together."

Anne's face went quite pale. "Perhaps, perhaps I ought to walk on ahead and help you prepare everything," she said faintly.

"Fiddlesticks," Marilla scoffed. "Everything will be ready and waiting at the usual time. It's one evening, Anne. Reconcile yourself to the notion and be the well-mannered young lady I know you can be. Gilbert will be our guest and we'll treat him as such. Understood?"

Anne nodded miserably.

* * *

Gilbert Blythe's situation was the talk of the Avonlea schoolyard the next morning. Jane Andrews as the daughter of the organizer of the 'dinner project' was the undisputed centre of attention on the girls' side.

"Mr. Blythe's been ill for some time," she was reminding them. "Why, six years back, he went even further—all the way to Edmonton in the Northwest Territories, all because some missionary spoke at church about how the Indians seemed to know how to cure so many sicknesses that we don't."

"I guess it helped for a while," Diana said. "Because they came back three years ago, and Mr. Blythe seemed well until just this past fall."

"Well, now there's a good Canadian doctor in Sandwich," Josie Pye sniffed, "so he needn't go near as far."

"But this time," Ruby Gillis said tremulously, "Mr. and Mrs. Blythe are going together and poor Gilbert…"

"It's because the schools are different in Upper Canada," Jane explained. "There were barely any in the Territories—that's why Gilbert got so far behind in the first place. Mr. Blythe doesn't want to have to pull him out again, but he doesn't want to travel alone."

"So this time, it's Mrs. Blythe that's going," nodded Tillie Boulter, "and poor Gilbert must fend for himself."

"Well, the town will do its Christian duty and ensure he doesn't go without," Carrie Sloan said virtuously. "And I'm sure he's grateful knowing it."

Anne was part of the ring of girls that had formed around Jane, but it was more for the pleasure of sitting next to Diana than for any interest in discussing Gilbert Blythe. She happened at that moment, however, to lift her eyes and see the object of the discussion standing close by. From the pallor of his face and the bright red of his ears, he had to have heard everything. And it was clear to Anne that 'gratitude' was the last thing on his mind.

Anne looked away swiftly, but she felt a pang of conscience when she did. It hadn't been that long ago that she'd been attending another school and one little girl had approached her to invite her to Sunday lunch. She hadn't been able to accept; with three sets of twins to look after, Mrs. Hammond had hardly been able to spare her. But after she'd made her apology, she'd overheard the girl say to one of her friends, "Of course, it's too bad she turned me down. Mother will be disappointed. She always says that we need to be charitable to those less fortunate and she's been after me and after me to invite that poor little orphan girl. Then again, I'm not sure what we'd have to talk about besides housework and other chores and how boring would that be? I suppose it's not her fault she never has time for anything else."

Anne hadn't had a mirror with her, nor any other way to see the expression on her face upon hearing herself dismissed so cavalierly. Thinking back now, though, she suspected it must have rather resembled the one she'd just glimpsed on Gilbert's. And the tiniest of cracks appeared in the wall of anger and disdain she'd erected between herself and Gilbert Blythe three years earlier.

* * *

The remainder of the week seemed to pass more swiftly than usual and, on her way to school the following Monday, Anne reflected that this was the final day before she'd have to face Gilbert Blythe across her very own dinner table. And while she asked herself however she could bear such a horror, strangely, it almost felt as though she was 'going through the motions' of being horrified, when what she really felt was a sort of weary resignation.

And perhaps, lurking behind that resignation, there was something else… something she shied away from acknowledging. Because over the course of the last few days, she'd seen Gilbert Blythe treated as an object of pity by most of the school. And those few pupils who did not act as if he were so still hung back as though they were unsure of how to approach him and were therefore choosing not to.

There had been more than one occasion when Anne had felt like marching up to one of them and shaking them. "Just talk to him, for Heaven's sake!" she wanted to say. "Do you think he doesn't see you sidling away and peeking at him out the corners of your eyes? Can you begin to imagine how much that hurts?"

But she said nothing, because it was scarcely as though she was rushing to converse with Gilbert either. And, unlike the others, she'd never claimed to be his friend. Even if she was having kindlier feelings toward him now than she'd enjoyed since the day he'd teased her about her hair.

And really, she asked herself now, had he said anything about it that hadn't been said before? She'd always been sensitive about her hair and she'd been startled and furious and maybe he'd even deserved to have her slate broken over his head. But when Anne found herself imagining whether these last three years of cold silence would have come about had Mr. Phillips not twice humiliated her—first by standing her at the front of the room beneath that hateful legend about her temper and second by ordering her to sit with Gilbert—if the teasing remark and the broken slate had been the only incidents, she began to wonder whether the whole matter might not have blown over. "Maybe," she whispered to herself in her east gable bedroom that night, "maybe we would have been friends by now if not for Mr. Phillips' treating me so unfairly in connection with him." Gilbert had tried to apologize so many times since that day, Anne realized. And she'd been too proud and too stubborn to relent.

"Well," Anne sighed, "I suppose it just proves what Ruskin says: Pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. And as hard as it may be to admit I've been making one, it'd be horrible if I kept on making it rather than try to be the friend Gilbert must need right now. If he'll even let me be one at this point."

* * *

It was a somewhat nervous and quieter than usual Anne who walked side by side with Diana to school the next morning.

"I asked Mother if she'd be willing to ask Marilla to let Gilbert eat with us tonight and spare you the discomfort," Diana said. "But we're having him to Sunday dinner and mother says that's enough until our turn comes about again. And I daresay it will," she added. "Nobody knows how long Mr. and Mrs. Blythe will be away, but it'll likely be weeks, if not months, and Avonlea isn't that large."

Diana was right, Anne realized. It was likely that tonight would only be the first time that the Cuthberts would play host to Gilbert Blythe. Oddly, Anne wasn't as horrified by the notion as she might have been, only a week earlier. But if her pride had yielded on some points, she still wasn't ready to swallow it enough to actually admit such a thing. So, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and said in a resigned voice, "It can't be helped, Diana. In times of crisis, we all must pitch in."

Then she realized that she sounded every bit as self-righteous and complacent as the other girls in the schoolyard a week ago and looked about surreptitiously to see whether anyone was close enough to have overheard what she'd just said. Not that she would have expected Gilbert to be there; the Blythe homestead was in the other direction. But gossip was swift and brutal in Avonlea and there was no telling when words spoken in confidence might wing their way to the wrong ears. It was with so small relief that she confirmed that there was nobody about within earshot.

"Besides," she said brightly, "I'm resolved to make the best of things."

* * *

A boy's laugh rang out a bit too boisterously as the two girls reached the schoolyard. A game of tag was in progress and Gilbert was tauntingly evading Charlie Sloan, who was 'it'. The bell rang, breaking up the game, as the children surged toward the schoolhouse, Anne and Diana among them.

"I could've tagged him easy," Anne heard Charlie tell Billy Andrews. "Only, your mother had my mother tell me to be extra nice to him, with his parents away and his father so ill."

"Charlie!" Carrie whispered. "Hush!"

But Gilbert had heard. And while he tried to pretend he hadn't, his chin assumed the same imperious tilt that Anne knew hers usually did, when she was trying to pretend she wasn't angry or upset by some unthinking remark. She'd never quite realized how pale that deception actually was.

"Gil—" She choked off his name abruptly, realizing that it wouldn't do to call it aloud in front of the whole school. It wasn't only the matter of her acknowledging him now, after three years of stony silence. Somehow, she thought that if Gilbert saw his sworn enemy reaching out to give comfort, his humiliation would be complete.

So she made no further effort to attract his attention.

But as she was walking down the aisle toward her desk, she slipped two peppermint candies onto his so swiftly and so deftly that none of her fellow pupils noticed.

* * *

Gilbert was waiting by the schoolhouse door as Anne and Diana emerged into the brittle sunlight of an Avonlea winter afternoon. Anne took a deep breath, but before she could say anything he walked toward them.

"Look, Anne," Gilbert said, not meeting her eyes, "if you'd rather, you can tell Miss Cuthbert I'd rather not face the walk home from your place in the dark of night and I'll not put Mr. Cuthbert to the inconvenience of driving me in the buggy. I can fend for myself."

A week ago, Anne would have welcomed such consideration, but now she gave Diana a beseeching glance and her bosom friend understandingly moved several steps away to give her as much privacy as could be bestowed without setting the usual tongues wagging.

"Matthew won't mind," Anne said quietly. "The almanac says it's to be a mild night. I checked it this morning."

"But you'll mind," Gilbert said. "I-I won't go where I'm not wanted. Just because Mrs. Harmon Andrews decided to make me the village charity project doesn't mean she has to impose it on anyone who—"

"It's no imposition," Anne said in the same quiet voice. "And I know Marilla's planning on baking strawberry apples," she added with a slight smile. "She bought a bushel off your father at harvest." She took another breath. "And I _don't_ mind."

"And you don't feel sorry for me?" Gilbert asked, disbelievingly. "Not even a little?"

Anne hesitated. "Maybe a little," she confessed. "I can imagine how I would feel if Matthew and Marilla had to go far away for Matthew's health and leave me behind. Green Gables is a scrumptious place and it's home, but without them, it would just seem so… empty. And I wouldn't like to think of anyone else in that situation." She shook her head. "But I would like to think that people around me would know I was still the same person I'd always been and that they'd not edge away from me while talking to one another about how dreadful I must be feeling, as though I couldn't hear them."

Gilbert ducked his head, sucked in his breath noisily, and let it out. "Thanks," he managed, with a slight catch in his voice.

"Of course," Anne added, "if the same person I'd always been were the sort to tease someone about her hair after they'd finally decided to accept an old apology, I guess I'd deserve to have another slate cracked over my head, even if I were living all by myself in a grand empty house."

Gilbert regarded her solemnly for a long moment, long enough for Anne's lips to curve upwards in a hesitant smile. Then a guffaw exploded from him and he hefted his book-strap more jauntily than he had in nearly a fortnight. "No fear of that," he managed, motioning to her to move along and falling into step beside her.

"Then no fear of slates," Anne smiled. And, just before they reached Diana, she added to herself in an undertone, "or dinner either."


End file.
